Alive
by voiceoftheundying
Summary: At birth, Princess Aurora was cursed to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die on the spot. Thankfully, a fairy managed to weaken it - instead of dying, Aurora would live as a commoner until true love's kiss. A new take on Sleeping Beauty.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, a handsome young man ruled the kingdom. He was intelligent, brave, kind-hearted – all in all, a fair king that was loved by the people. His kingdom, one of seventeen, was not the largest and most prosperous, but he worked to let his land flourish. He travelled everywhere, making sure that each and every person had food in their belly and a roof over their head. He set laws to protect the rights of his people and banished any corrupt palace officials.

In time, his kingdom thrived. The homeless now had a home, the beggars no longer begged, and the injured healed under the medical system he created. His people adored him and threw celebrations in his name almost every month. They treated him as a legend, a legacy, and told their children and grandchildren of his virtues.

But, alas, it led to his undoing. The people of his land loved him, but he felt that what he had done for them wasn't yet enough. He became anxious, greedy even, for more. The king wanted the sprawling lands and powerful armies that many other kingdoms possessed. He wanted to have his castle and entire capital city made of gold, instead of modest stones, like the kingdoms that had abundant mineral resources. He wanted to have a thousand fleets of ships at his command, like the kingdoms located near the sea.

And most of all, the young king wanted power. He had never been power-hungry, but now it was all he craved. He drove himself near mad with want, lost as he was in his illusions of sparkling jewels and vast territories. Soon, the king forgot the joy he felt when he looked over his people. He no longer laughed, no longer smiled. His face, still remarkably handsome, twisted with anger when he saw what the other kingdoms possessed. His heart became overrun by hatred and his mind, once so intelligent, filled with jealousy. Most of all, he felt stifled, choked with unfairness. He was born to rule! How could it be that he was stuck with one of the worst kingdoms in the lot? They lacked the gold and diamond deposits that other kingdoms boasted and the land was dry and cracked in most regions. No, this couldn't possibly be right. Somehow, fate had messed up.

The more he contemplated it, the more he liked the idea. Of course fate had messed up! He started setting his sights on neighboring kingdoms, imagining how it would feel to rule two, three, four times the amount of land he owned now. His daydreams included strand after strand of jewels around his neck, women who flocked to his wealth, and the power that he rightly deserved.

The king decided that it was up to himself to right the accidental wrong. And so he gathered all the talented magical beings he could find, consulted fortune tellers, and hatched himself a plan.

* * *

><p>She was born Princess Aurora, third child of the kingdom, and she was the first princess to be born in Sylfaen in centuries. Aurora was named after the Roman goddess of the dawn, for just the mere thought of a princess filled the king and queen with sunshine. (It's all really quite cheesy if you think about it.)<p>

She had five gifts bestowed upon her at birth. Technically only four – beauty, grace, charm, and intelligence – for the fifth one was neither a virtue nor an object highly coveted among the seventeen kingdoms. Instead, it was a chance to live.

Because, you see, some time in between the fourth gift and the fifth gift, there had been the rudest of interruptions. It came in the form of Maleficent, a notorious dark witch that was absolutely livid about being left out of the baby shower festivities. King Stefan had opened the castle doors to everyone, for heaven's sake. He invited each and every magical creature in the kingdom of Sylfaen – each and every one except Maleficent.

Well, to be completely honest, that was a bit of an exaggeration; King Stefan had definitely not invited the werewolves, or the centaurs, or the giants, and many more. But Maleficent still took it personally, in the same way that she took everything personally. She had burst into the ballroom, seen the fairies gathered around a pale pink crib, taken one look at the small princess that laid there, eyes wide and startlingly blue, and cursed her. Cursed her to prick her finger on a spinning wheel the night she turned seventeen and die on the spot.

It was the fifth gift that saved little Princess Aurora. It proclaimed that instead of pricking her finger and dying, she would live as a commoner until true love's kiss. With those words, Princess Aurora's destiny began to morph into something else completely.

And so she lived, knowing exactly what would happen on her seventeenth birthday but not aware of how difficult it would be and just how many lives rested in her hands.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Hello everyone! This is my first fanfic in a very, very long time, hahaha. I would love to hear feedback, so please review :) Also, since I started this fanfic at not a very convenient time, I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update. The life of a student...*sigh* But I'm determined to finish this, no matter how long it takes.


	2. The Cursed Princess

_Chapter Two_

**The Cursed Princess**

By the time Princess Aurora reached age five, everyone in the kingdom of Sylfaen knew of her curse. Servants avoided her eyes and none of the other little kids wanted to be friends. People whispered about her and rumors spread like wildfire. It didn't help that Queen Evren did everything in her power to keep Princess Aurora out of sight.

In fact, that was partly the reason why the rumors became so out of control. Each person seemed to have a different theory about her. Some said that her beauty was so enchanting that people became bewitched on the spot and others argued that she must have horns on her head and the appearance of an ogre. Some were certain that she was cursed to die, while others believed she had been cursed to sleep for a hundred years. Everyone thought there was something wrong with her.

Even animals seemed to think she was strange.

Once, Aurora had been taking a walk in the royal gardens with a lady-in-waiting. It was a beautiful spring day, full of sunshine and warmth, and the young princess was itching to go outside. The ground and the trees had been covered in birds – all sorts, really. Pigeons, robins, doves, blue jays. At her approach they scattered and flew up in sync, a whirlwind of feathers and fluttering wings that surrounded the princess completely. They chirped and cawed and seemed to be trying to tell her something. They only flew away when a nearby gardener saw the sight and screamed. No one else even tried to hide their stares. The next day, the lady-in-waiting that had been with her quit her position.

When Queen Evren heard of it, she was furious. She forbade Aurora from ever setting foot inside the gardens again.

And yet the rumors still spread. Rumors about the princess being some sort of witch that spoke to birds, rumors that there was something very, very wrong with her.

Princess Aurora's only companion was her brother, Prince Evan, who was three years older than her. She had another older brother, Crown Prince Ren that was six years her senior, but he was often busy with the duties of a crown prince. The entire royal family had dark hair and big blue eyes, and Prince Evan and Princess Aurora looked like twins. Both possessed straight inky black hair and round orbs for eyes. On the other hand, their personalities couldn't be more different. Prince Evan was talkative and lively, eager at the prospect of any kind of adventure, while Aurora was shy and introverted, her shoulders scrunched up with the weight of so many eyes on her.

The two of them made for a bickering pair that came up with never-ending pranks to play on the girls who had the poor fortune of becoming their servants. Prince Evan often teased her and when the two of them argued, it was complete with hitting and shoving.

"You're just a little girl, you can't beat me at any game," he would taunt. "You're skinnier than a twig and not even half as fast as me."

Aurora's lips would tremble and her eyes would grow brighter as tears filled them. She would hit him and he always retaliated by elbowing her sharply in the side, and soon the two of them ended up rolling on the ground in a shouting mess until a servant notified either King Stefan or Queen Evren and they pulled them apart.

But beyond their fights, she looked up to him and he, in turn, adored her. He was fiercely protective of her in the way that all brothers are with their younger sisters, and he made no effort to hide his glares whenever the other kids in the castle, sons and daughters of dukes and nobles, whispered in hushed tones that she was a little demon.

"Don't listen to them," Prince Evan said to her once, after a group of four boys and three girls had teamed up on her. They had pulled her hair and called her names and laughed as she cried. "They're just jealous and stupid, the whole lot of them. Don't you know that fairies gave you gifts? Gifts of beauty and intelligence and all the things they lack."

The next time Princess Aurora saw them, each of the boys had a black eye and skinned knees. The girls didn't look much better; their arms sported scuff marks. They apologized to her reluctantly and then scurried away quickly when they saw Prince Evan in the distance.

He also defended her valiantly against Queen Evren whenever the two of them got caught sneaking somewhere, which only earned more punishment for both of them. But with him, even punishment was fun. It usually involved either doing chores in the kitchen or reading in silence at the palace library. Prince Evan would always find a way to sneak in some candy, or to distract the servants overseeing them. Princess Aurora loved him, loved him in a way that she didn't love her parents or Prince Ren.

But everything changed when she turned nine and Prince Evan turned twelve. Twelve was the age that the children in the castle started attending school and as a prince, there was no way for him to avoid it. When his classes started and the two of them could no longer play together every day like two puppies from the same litter, Aurora felt loneliness and an aching sadness press against her chest.

She did everything the two of them used to do alone for the next two years and remained stubbornly ignorant to others' opinions of her. But now that she no longer had Prince Evan by her side, the other kids made fun of her openly and relentlessly.

"What are you, an animal?" the other girls would say to her when she returned from digging for frogs or climbing trees, smirking at the dirt on her clothes. They would scamper away, feigning innocence, whenever a servant came close, though Aurora knew that they were hiding gleeful smiles behind their hands. They always came back again the next day.

Aurora heard it all, from the average "you're strange," to the unimaginative "some princess you are," to the yawn-inducing "your face is shaped weird and your lips are too red," all the way to the more hurtful comments like "the queen never even wanted you."

Whenever they played games, Aurora was the sole outcast. Other kids who used to be ostracized seized the chance to belong and made fun of her along with the others. After being pelted with mud and dirt or finding bug after bug in her bed, Aurora's lips would tremble and her eyes would fill with tears, but she never cried. She refused to cry in front of them.

When she turned twelve, change came again.

She had been hiding in the stables, watching soldiers train on the palace grounds. Aurora had been careful not to be seen as she snuck out of her bedchamber and now, seated in a partly concealed corner, she admired the strength that her father's men held. She had heard from somewhere that a king's men mirrored not only himself, but also their kingdom. Looking at them now, she thought that it would be hard for Sylfaen to do justice to these soldiers.

"Princess," someone whispered from behind her.

Aurora turned, her eyes wide, shocked not only because she had been discovered, but also at the fact that someone was speaking to her of their own will. She scrambled to her feet and dusted her skirts off. "Yes?"

It was a young boy, most likely the son of a guard or a stable-hand. He had a cap of mahogany hair and his eyes shone green. He didn't look familiar to her. It was the expression on his face, a mix between curiosity and bewilderment, which caught Aurora off guard. He had none of the fear or wariness or mockery that she had come to expect from other kids and just for that Aurora wanted to throw her little arms around him.

"Do you like to watch fighting?" he asked, that look of bewilderment crossing over his young, boyish features again.

"Yes," she answered with her eyes on her feet. Was he only speaking to her so that he could go back to his friends and report about what a freak she was? Aurora took back the nice things she had thought about him just moments earlier as she felt a blush rise to her cheeks. She wished a fairy had given her the gift to shrink away into nothing.

"You're different from the other girls," he said, as if it was a good thing. "Do you want to play a game? I'll be a spy and you can be a royal guard."

Aurora looked up to see him grinning. She felt something that felt like hope come alive inside of her.

His name was Lucas.


End file.
